An artist's impression of a superconducting computer chip. (Image Credit: TU Delft)
For the first time, scientists at TU Delft developed a one-way superconductor that blocks current flow in one direction while providing zero resistance in the other. The discovery, which uses 2D quantum materials, could lead to enormous energy savings and make computers 400x faster. Superconductors could make electronics hundreds of times faster without energy loss. This usually requires magnetic fields to prevent multi-directional conducting, making them impractical for computing.
The researchers came up with a different way to control the current flow in a superconductor. Rather than magnets, they used Nb3Brg, an atomically thin quantum material created by a John Hopkins University material physics team. Theoretically, this material features an electric dipole. The TU Delft team developed a "Quantum Material Josephson Junctions" with an Nb3Brg layer sandwiched between two superconductors.
The team developed various devices with different batches of materials to test their JJ superconductor. They discovered that each one exhibited a strong one-way current flow without a magnetic field present. However, the team still needs to overcome room temperature usability challenges. So far, all the tests were conducted at a temperature of -321 °F. Operating the JJ superconductors in normal temperatures could bring the team closer to the next step, which involves determining if it can be scaled for mass production. "While it's great that we proved this works in nanodevices, we only made a handful. The next step will be to investigate how to scale production to millions of Josephson diodes on a chip," says associate professor Mazhar Ali.
"Many technologies are based on old versions of JJ superconductors, for example, MRI technology. Also, quantum computing today is based on Josephson Junctions. Technology, which was previously only possible using semi-conductors, can now potentially be made with superconductors using this building block. This includes faster computers, as in computers with up to terahertz speed, which is 300 to 400 times faster than the computers we are now using. This will influence all sorts of societal and technological applications. If the 20th century was the century of semi-conductors, the 21st can become the century of the superconductor," says Ali.
This superconductor could have applications in supercomputers and centralized server farms, benefitting people at an extremely affordable cost. If the team manages to overcome the previously mentioned obstacles, then the superconductor will revolutionize centralized and supercomputing.
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